Alrighty here goes.....

[6gun]

I am researching options for increasing traction for my '99 Rear naturally is easy(Truetrac more than likely).

Front end is another story. From what I gather the D35 IFS(SLA) is completely different from all others. So my question is. Is there any alternative I am not seeing. I have already gone live axle so a locker(unless selectable) isn't an option.

I'm gonna try to get my hands on a spare carrier to measure and explore possibility of modifying a truetrac to fit front also.

Am I crazy?

 

[gw33gp]

You should have the option of a Torsen differential for the front. I had one installed on my 02 and like it. I don't know for sure but 99 should have the same differential as an 02.

 

[Will]

"Live axle" is a long dead term. People make stuff up just so they can keep using it. Nothing has a "live axle" anymore. All it meant during the horse-drawn days was that instead of having the axle fixed to the springs and the bearings in the wheels, the bearing was on the springs and the wheels were fixed to the axle. In either case, the axle holds the weight. When they started figuring out how to put motors on buggies, they could add a sprocket to a "live axle" and drive it--like a go cart. You can add a differential to this as well--like an ATV uses. The other method, using a "dead axle" was to put a driven sprocket on each wheel and chain drive each wheel separately with a differential between the drive sprockets. The advantage of this is that the axle doesn't have to deal with both the load of the vehicle and the twisting force of the drive power.

This term is long dead and only means anything if you have a go-kart ot ATV where you can choose between one-wheel drive with the sprocket mounted to the wheel or a "live axle" with both wheels driven by a sprocket on the common shaft (differential optional).

What you have now is a beam axle (straight axle) and it's either semi float, with the weight riding on the shafts or full float with the weight riding on a spindle and the drive-axle passing through the center of the spindle and only dealing with twisting forces.

None of that has anything to do with the type of traction device you have. If you welded your spiders together then you made what is know as a spool, essentially. Then you have automatic lockers which use the ground force from tires being pulled along at different speeds to open a dog clutch and release an axle so it can spin independently from it's opposite. Then you have a bunch of limited slip devices that use various technologies to encourage a true differential to give some torque back to that spinning tire. Clutches, viscous fluids with blades chapping away in them and then the Torsen, which is a true differential that uses very inefficient gears to perform its job, which means a lot of the torque which should have gone toward spinning the heck out of the slipping tire is applied to the tire with traction. They paint it up as a brilliant device, but all it amounts to is a brilliant use of a mis-applied gear type.

Then you have the selectable axles where you press a button and an air or electrically powered clutch locks the back up. Some factory vehicles have that--and often times it is computer controlled with a manual over-ride, as is the case with Honda's VTM4 in the Pilot and Ridgeline and others.

In my opinion, the automatic locker is the best for offroad--whether it is a lunchbox locker which uses your factory carrier or a model which replaces your carrier and requires gear set-up. In a medium or heavy truck, and in a 14-bolt GM axle, a full Detroit Locker is a lunchbox locker. In everything else, you have to replace the carrier. I would recommend a Powertrax Lock-rite. I've had one in both ends of my Ranger axles for 15 years. After a week, its quirks and things go away because you get used to them. The awesomeness of never having to say you're sorry never goes away. All wheels drive the same when you need them. Take it easy on slippery side slopes and in 4wd on icy roads.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

What he has is a front axle with the hubs always locked in. Things move, like they are alive. As opposed to an axle like mine with the hubs unlocked where nothing moves, like it is dead. Similar to the horse and buggy analogy, live turns with the wheels and dead just sits there. It is hardly long dead since most everybody with a 98-00 Ranger (and other trucks) uses it to describe their front axle situation.

If you don't hang tires in the air doing hard offroading I don't think a locker is really required. But I don't know what you do with your truck though either.

I run in mud and snow (mud when I have to, snow when I go looking for trouble) My rebuilt clutch type rear limited slip has always left two tracks, I know they don't last forever but for what I do the fanciest locker out there would do the same thing... spin two tires.

When I get a D35 TTB I am going to put a clutch limited slip out of a Jeep in it, basically the same setup I have now in the rear. It has the added benefit of having some give if something does catch hard which makes life easier on the rest of the powertrain. Sadly I don't think you can just use a Jeep carrier in a SLA D35.

And if you DD the thing I do think it would get old fighting with a locker on the front axle when you can't unlock the hubs. CV joints may not appreciate it either.